4 ms·

I have to agree that I think this has to do with hiring cheaper labor. I'm not sure whether they are immigrants or not has very much to do with it. I think that

I have to agree that I think this has to do with hiring cheaper labor. I'm not sure whether they are immigrants or not has very much to do with it. I think that immigration probably helps to increase the labor pool seeking jobs in the US in the tech industry. I would imagine the more seasoned foreign engineers/devs/etc. probably would be less inclined to uproot their lives and move to the US. While immigration might be an issue, I think it's really just a problem with a desire to hire younger and cheaper labor regardless of whether they are US citizens or not. There is still tech on the east coast, but it's nothing like the allure or salaries that are offered out in Silicon Valley. Actually, I feel like most of the really talented individuals from the east coast make their way out west unless they have some other non-job things keeping them rooted out here or they happen to land a pretty decent job at a fintech, adtech, etc. company out on the east coast. But I see a lot of companies thinning their IT staff and the people who are most likely to go tend to be the >40 crowd. Probably because they are more expensive, management doesn't perceive them as being as "up-to-date," and there's less runway in their career. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if some of it is that they want less experienced individuals who will just do what their told and might be less opinionated about things. To me this causes a huge problem with system and application architecture, because you lose all of that expertise of years spent developing and dealing with different situations that I believe can give you a lot of insight into how things should be architected.

stirfrykitty 8y ago
I'm 50. Been in IT across three decades. There is very little in my wheelhouse that I cannot do or learn within a very short amount of time. Yet... I fight to find decent work that I am more than capable of doing. IT salaries in Texas suck horribly. I've fought this since leaving the East Coast. Being that my wife is from here and my own parents are long gone, I agreed to let my wife be near her own family. At 50, I can: - Admin anything *nix or Windows under the sun. I used to run Sun E10Ks for Network Solutions and more than 100 FreeBSD/Linux servers at one time. - Can write Python, Perl, Ruby, PowerShell, C#, Bash, awk, and am learning Go as I write this. - I can build any web server or database server under the sun, can write programs to do basically whatever a server or sysadmin might need, usually in a matter of hours, not days. - I can perform security assessments, as I used to be a pen tester. I have the experience and the certs (required from a previous employer). Yet... I struggle to find work in my own damn country! IT for older workers does indeed suck. I now work for a non-profit coding and some other IT work. Not a bad fit, but the money could be a lot better. On the East Coast, I was a six-figure guy. Here? Good luck, even if you're 30 and have a masters in whatever and 10 years of experience. Am I bitter? A little. American IT workers, unless they are current darlings in a hot area or arena, struggle. I'm actually working on starting my own MSP IT firm with a suitable partner almost my own age whose experience rivals my own. Good MSPs in this area can do very well.

stirfrykitty 8y ago

I'm 50. Been in IT across three decades. There is very little in my wheelhouse that I cannot do or learn within a very short amount of time. Yet... I fight to find decent work that I am more than capable of doing. IT salaries in Texas suck horribly. I've fought this since leaving the East Coast. Being that my wife is from here and my own parents are long gone, I agreed to let my wife be near her own family. At 50, I can: - Admin anything *nix or Windows under the sun. I used to run Sun E10Ks for Network Solutions and more than 100 FreeBSD/Linux servers at one time. - Can write Python, Perl, Ruby, PowerShell, C#, Bash, awk, and am learning Go as I write this. - I can build any web server or database server under the sun, can write programs to do basically whatever a server or sysadmin might need, usually in a matter of hours, not days. - I can perform security assessments, as I used to be a pen tester. I have the experience and the certs (required from a previous employer). Yet... I struggle to find work in my own damn country! IT for older workers does indeed suck. I now work for a non-profit coding and some other IT work. Not a bad fit, but the money could be a lot better. On the East Coast, I was a six-figure guy. Here? Good luck, even if you're 30 and have a masters in whatever and 10 years of experience. Am I bitter? A little. American IT workers, unless they are current darlings in a hot area or arena, struggle. I'm actually working on starting my own MSP IT firm with a suitable partner almost my own age whose experience rivals my own. Good MSPs in this area can do very well.